Although the Xien Marquisate is called a marquisate, in fact, there are only five cities in the entire country, and the rest are just small county towns. It looks big, but more than half of the land area is desert - the Xien Desert.
Wang Xiaohai is standing above the Sean Desert at this moment.
He stayed in a hotel in a small town near the desert for one night. When he got up in the morning, there was a thin layer of sand on the quilt. He shook it hard, and the whole room seemed to be covered with sand fog, blocking his eyes.
Under the fiery light of the stars, the red desert below appears even more vivid, like lustrous blood, which is awe-inspiring.
Several rows of steam locomotives are running on the red desert. The types of steam locomotives are also different: there are transport-type steam freight cars, functional steam exploration vehicles, passenger-carrying steam buses, comfortable steam dining cars and steam RVs. Of course, the most common are steam excavators, which are the main force of this treasure exploration.
Wang Xiaohai flew along the convoy and arrived at the treasure area. There were even more steam locomotives in the area, so densely packed that it seemed as if there was no end in sight. Trucks were constantly dumping coal and water. The coal was poured onto the ground, and the water was poured into newly constructed pools. After emptying, the water returned to the same route and continued transport. Countless strong men, including warriors, were using wheelbarrows to carry coal to the various steam locomotives, and were running around carrying water in wooden buckets. The steam from the countless steam machines condensed into fog over the desert, shrouding the area in a hazy haze.
"Is this the combined strength of the nearby Thousand Marquisates? It's truly spectacular!" Wang Xiaohai lowered his altitude and closely observed this newly created steam-mechanical city. It could be called a mechanical city because it had most of the things a city had, such as accommodation and food, as well as various underground services.
Countless warning signs formed a large circle in the center of this new steam-powered city. They read: "No entry for non-specialized personnel, no entry without proper radiation protection clothing, immediate death on discovery!" Signed by the Order of the Holy See's Radiant Knights.
"The Vatican is really quick!" Wang Xiaohai said, "Looking at the scale, it looks like they have been digging here for more than half a year!" He said this unconsciously, and suddenly realized that Marquis Sean had deceived him!
Yes, only Marquis Sean knows the contents of the document. Wang Xiaohai cannot tell the truth from falsehood no matter what he says, so he can only choose to believe him!
"That old fox, he's deliberately half-truthful!" Wang Xiaohai cursed in his heart. "That the Watson Knights murdered Shana's wet nurse is true; there's no need to lie to me about such a small matter. But what he said about the knights leading a team across the Sien Desert on a mission a month ago is half-truth. The mission is true, but the time is false! The time should have been a year ago. The document is probably related to treasure, but it doesn't involve a request for aid from other countries. I suspect he must have discovered another treasure besides the statue, and this treasure is very important, so he sent a document to inform other marquises or dukes not to spread the news and secretly pocketed it together. What could be so important that he would hide it from the Dingwen Church? He deliberately said the time was a month ago to make me believe that there was only one treasure, the statue. After all, the less time, the fewer treasures will be found. To conceal this treasure, he deliberately said the time was a month. If he said a few days, no one would believe it because even the mechanical tools might not be ready. If he said too long, I would suspect there might be other treasures. This guy has studied psychology!"
Wang Xiaohai thought about Marquis Sean's behavior and finally understood why he kept drinking strong liquor: it was to deceive Wang Xiaohai! After drinking, people's physical behavior is different from that of ordinary people, such as heart rate changes and sweating. Marquis Sean, with some manipulation and disguise, can completely deceive Wang Xiaohai, a human polygraph machine! Marquis Sean knew he couldn't be a master liar like X-Force, so he used strong liquor as a prop to assist in the deception. Fortunately, Wang Xiaohai was fooled!
It was too late for Wang Xiaohai to return to the Marquis' Mansion and search for Marquis Sean. He likely had left the mansion long ago, and no one knew where he had fled. Finding someone was incredibly difficult. There was a rumor that a man in Qingliu City had lost his son. The father had searched for decades without any leads, and finally registered at the gene bank, only to discover that his son lived in the next neighborhood, just a few hundred meters away! Wang Xiaohai had originally planned to meet Marquis Sean only once and never again, so he hadn't memorized his presence. He couldn't follow his presence like he had with the apprentice of the escort leader. Furthermore, in this steam age, there weren't even computers, let alone gene banks. Even if there were, Marquis Sean wouldn't register his genes and address there.
In short, now Wang Xiaohai seems unable to find Marquis Sean! Wang Xiaohai racked his brains to think: "What other ways are there to find Marquis Sean? Capture his children to threaten him? It is probably useless. That guy is a rational and cold-blooded person. Capturing relatives to threaten is only useful for emotional fools. So there are two other ways to try - the first is to find the person who shared the treasure with the Marquis, the person he sent the document to; the last is to go to the Dingwen Church to see if there is a life scroll or something like that. If you find it, you can track it according to the breath on it." However, if he didn't know what the treasure was, Wang Xiaohai would not bother to pursue it. If he found Sean, but found that his so-called treasure was just the fruit of the awakening realm, that is, the fruit of the Holy Knight, or some rare jewels, then Wang Xiaohai's efforts would be in vain. Well - he now regards gold, silver and jewelry as dung, so he is not very keen on collecting "dung".
"Let's stay here for a few days to see if there are any more treasures unearthed?" Wang Xiaohai descended at a speed invisible to ordinary people and blended into the crowd.
An old man in front who was carrying a bucket of water slipped and fell to the ground. The bucket overturned and seeped into the sand, and soon disappeared without a trace.
The water-carrying uncle scooped up a handful of sand painfully and let the red sand slowly flow through his fingers.
"Why are you so sad? Just pick up two more buckets." Wang Xiaohai walked up to the water-carrying uncle and said.
This new steam machinery city has tens of thousands of steam engines of various types. If you count ten people as the steam engine driver, maintenance personnel, coal shovelers, water transporters and other staff, the population will be hundreds of thousands. Add to that other service personnel and migrant workers who take the bus to earn money, and this is a big city with a population of nearly one million!
"Are you new here looking for work?" the water carrier said. "There's been a lot of people coming here lately, so it's hard to find work. I have to pay twenty copper coins for two buckets of water, and I get twenty-five copper coins for carrying them to the car that needs them. I only make five copper coins for the round trip, and I have to help pour water and clean the steam tank. Each round trip takes half an hour, so I make about ten trips a day and only earn about seventy copper coins. I lost twenty copper coins by falling down. It's like I wasted half a day carrying water. Who wouldn't feel bad?"
Wang Xiaohai knew that one hundred copper coins equaled one tael of silver, so he said, "I'm new here. Lead the way and help me find a hotel and a good dining cart. I'll give you five taels of silver."
Wang Xiaohai could have found a motorhome to stay in by himself. He said this just to find someone to question. This water-carrying uncle must have been here for quite a long time and should know a lot of things.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com